Villagers who dislike work or learning are generally difficult to train. Those with dislikes for, say, fish or swimming, will tend to run away if dropped in the ocean, so it seems unlikely that Perl is one of those. Even those with no particular likes or dislikes in their details screen can be difficult sometimes.

By the way, I try to allow only villagers who are at least master scientists to mate; most of the time that means that their children will inherit some skills and will start to learn on their own.